pigeonholeWhat Is Strategy?
memories是什么意思I. Operational Effectiveness Is Not Strategy
For almost two decades, managers have been learning to play by a new t of rules. Companies must be flexible to respond rapidly to competitive and market changes. They must benchmark continuously to achieve best practice. They must outsource aggressively to gain efficiencies. And they must nurture a few core competencies in the race to stay ahead of rivals.
Positioning-once the heart of strategy-is rejected as too static for today's dynamic markets and changing technologies. According to the new dogma, rivals can quickly copy any market position, and competitive advantage is, at best, temporary.
mdb
But tho beliefs are dangerous half-truths, and they are leading more and more companies down the path of mutually destructive competition. True, some barriers to competition are falling as regulation eas and markets become global. True, companies h
ave properly invested energy in becoming leaner and more nimble. In many industries, however, what some call hypercompetition is a lf-inflicted wound, not the inevitable outcome of a changing paradigm of competition.
The root of the problem is the failure to distinguish between operational effectiveness and strategy. The quest for productivity, quality, and speed has spawned a remarkable number of management tools and techniques: total quality management, `benchmarking, time-bad competition, outsourcing, partnering, reengineering, change management. Although the resulting operational improvements have often been dramatic, many companies have been frustrated by their inability to translate tho gains into sustainable profitability. And bit by bit, almost imperceptibly, management tools have taken the place of strategy. As managers push to improve on all fronts, they move farther away from viable competitive positions.
考拉的英文I. Operational Effectiveness: Necessary but Not Sufficient
toefl听力新思维
Operational effectiveness and strategy are both esntial to superior performance, which, after all, is the primary goal of any enterpri. But they work in very different ways.
A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference that it can prerve. It must deliver greater value to customers or create comparable value at a lower cost, or do both. The arithmetic of superior profitability then follows: delivering greater value allows a company to charge higher average unit prices; greater efficiency results in lower average unit costs.
Ultimately, all differences between companies in cost or price derive from the hundreds of activities required to create, produce, ll, and deliver their products or rvices, such as calling on customers, asmbling final products, and training employees. Cost is generated by performing activities, and cost advantage aris from performing particular activities more efficiently than competitors. Similarly, differentiation aris from both the choice of activities and how they are performed. Activities, then, are the basic units of competitive advantage. Overall advantage or disadvantage results from all a company's
activities, not only a few.[1]
Operational effectiveness (OE) means performing similar activities better than rivals perform them. Operational effectiveness includes but is not limited to efficiency. It refers to any number of practices that allow a company to better utilize its inputs by, for example, reducing defects in products or developing better products faster. In contrast, strategic positioning means performing different activities from rivals' or performing similar activities in different ways.
民愤
thewantedDifferences in operational effectiveness among companies are pervasive. Some companies are able to get more out of their inputs than others becau they eliminate wasted effort, employ more advanced technology, motivate employees better, or have greater insight into managing particular activities or ts of activities. Such differences in operational effectiveness are an important source of differences in profitability among competitors becau they directly affect relative cost positions and levels of differentiation.
fontfamily
regulationDifferences in operational effectiveness were at the heart of the Japane challenge to Western companies in the 1980s. The Japane were so far ahead of rivals in operational effectiveness that they could offer lower cost and superior quality at the same time. It is worth dwelling on this point, becau so much recent thinking about competition depends on it. Imagine for a moment a productivity frontier that constitutes the sum of all existing best practices at any given time. Think of it as the maximum value that a company delivering a particular product or rvice can create at a given cost, using the best available technologies, skills, management techniques, and purchad inputs. The productivity frontier can apply to individual activities, to groups of linked activities such as order processing and manufacturing, and to an entire company's activities. When a company improves its operational effectiveness, it moves toward the frontier. Doing so may require capital investment, different personnel, or simply new ways of managing.
>ocean deep
